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THE 



PHILIPPINE 




Their Graphic Description by one who has lived 

there — Their vast Agricultural, Mineral, and 

Industrial Resources — Gold glittering in the 

Sand and Gravel of every Stream— One 

of the richest Gold-fields of Earth in 

a land of Perpetual Summer. 

How Annexation will develop the Islands rapidly 
and give the United States a World- 
reaching Commerce. 

BY 

JOHN WESLEY DAILY, A.B., M.D. 



C. C. DAILY PUBLISHING COMPANY, 

BOSTON, MASS. 

596 Tremont Street. 

1898. 



THE 



PHILIPPINE ISLANDS, 



THEIE NUMBER, AGGREGATE AREA, AND POPULATION. 

ORIGIN, DISCOVERY, LOCATION, LATITUDE, 

CLIMATE, SOIL, AGRICULTURAL AND 

MINERAL RESOURCES. 

THE PRINCIPAL INHABITANTS, THEIR CUSTOMS, 
SCHOOLS, COLLEGES, AND RELIGIONS. 

ANNEXATION: HOW IT WILL AMERICANIZE, CIVILIZE, 
AND DEVELOP THE MANY ISLANDS, GREATLY EXTEND 
OUR COMMERCE, CONSUME OUR PRODUCE, SET 
OUR WHEELS A-SPINNING, AND GIVE EM- 
PLOYMENT TO ALL OUR PEOPLE. 



BY 

JOHN WESLEY DAILY, A.B., M.D. 



C. C. DAILY PUBLISHING COMPANY, 

BOSTON, MASS. 

596 Tremont Street. 

1898. 












Copyright, 1898, 
By 

JOECN' WESLEY DAELY, 

BOSTON HASfi • U.S.A. 



ell ■:--- : res : -: : -: - : 



( >/ / 



THE 

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 



[In preparing this pamphlet for publication, 
the author gratefully acknowledges the assistance 
of Ct. M. de Moreira, professor of languages, who 
has lived in Manila, has travelled over and through 
all the principal islands of the Philippines; who 
is familiar with the racial peculiarities, laws, cus- 
toms, and religions of the prevailing inhabitants ; 
and who has studied the agricultural, mineral, 
and industrial resources of the various islands,] 

THE archipelago known as the 
Philippine Islands is situated 
in the Pacific Ocean, south-west of 
Japan and Korea ; 500 miles south- 
east of China ; a few hundred miles 
north and a little to the east of 
Borneo; and over 1,200 miles north 
of Australia. 



4 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

The islands number 1,200 or 
more , the most of them being small 
and uninhabited. 

The southern extremity of the 
group lies 5 degrees north of the 
equator, while the most northern 
boundary is 20 degrees from the 
equator, the latitudinal range of the 
islands being about as wide as that 
of the United States. 

The Philippine Islands were dis- 
covered in 1521 by Magellan, and a 
few years later the Spaniards, under 
Villalobos, took possession of the 
group and named it in honor of 
King Philip II. of Spain, and have 
held it over 360 years. 

The islands were again discovered 
on the first of last May by Admiral 
Dewey, who proceeded with great 
promptness to sink Spain's Asiatic 
fleet. 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 5 

The aggregate area of the Philip- 
pines is 150,000 square miles, a ter- 
ritory equal in size to the States of 
New York, Indiana, Maine, New 
Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, 
Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. 

NAMES, AREA, AND RELA- 
TIVE LOCATION OF THE 
PRINCIPAL ISLANDS, 

Luzon, almost in the extreme 
north, has an area of 51,300 square 
miles and a population of 3,500,000 
or more. Manila, the capital of the 
Philippines, and principal city, is 
situated on the south-west coast of 
Luzon, in latitude 14 degrees north, 
is a live commercial city with a 
population of 350,000 people, of 
whom about 300,000 are natives, or 
half-breeds of the M alay class ; about 
40,000 are Chinese ; 7,500 Spanish; 



6 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

200 Germans; 100 English; and, 
possibly, 100 Americans exclusive 
of the soldiers and sailors. 

Mindanoa is the next island in 
size, being half as large as Luzon, 
and containing over 25,000 square 
miles. It is one of the most south- 
ern islands, intensely fertile, and 
capable of supporting a very dense 
population. 

The islands lying between Min- 
danoa, near the equator, and Luzon, 
in the far north, are known as the 
Bissayas, the largest of which are 
the following: 

Samar, with 13,000 square miles ; 
Mindora, 12,800; Panay, 11,350; 
Leyte, 10,000 ; Nigros, 6,300 ; Mas- 
bate, 4,000 ; and Zebu, 2,300. 

The Bissayas have an aggregate 
area of 60,000 square miles, being 
40 per cent, in area of the entire 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 7 

group, and are said to have a popu- 
lation of nearly 4,000,000. The 
total population of the Philippines 
in 1876, according to the best infor- 
mation obtainable at that time, 
was 6,500,000. The "New York 
World's" almanac for 1898 claims 
for the islands a population of 
9,500,000; and as this indicates an 
annual increase of only 2 per cent, 
during the last 22 years, the figures 
seem very reasonable. 

Lying south-west of the Bissayas 
is a long, narrow island known as 
the Paragoa. It has 8,800 square 
miles, being a trifle larger than 
the State of Massachusetts, and 
consists of mountain ranges, billowy 
highlands, gentle slopes, and beau- 
tiful valleys ; is watered by numer- 
ous creeks and rivers, and is exceed- 
ingly fertile. Here is a land of 



8 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

perpetual summer ; the shimmering 
waters are alive with fish ; squirrels 
bark and monkeys chatter from the 
branches of a thousand trees; the 
thunder-like drumming of pheas- 
ants and the warble of sweet wild 
birds are sounds familiar to tourists 
who have penetrated these tropical 
forests; natural beehives, replete 
with dripping honey, are found in 
the limbs and trunks of trees ; 

"And strange, bright birds on their airy wings 
Bear the rich hues of all glorious things ; " 

and yet Paragoa is no earthly para- 
dise, for the jungles, bound together 
by the floating garlands of climbing 
plants and indigenous vines, swarm 
with snakes, lizards, huge spiders, 
tarantulas, white ants, mosquitoes, 
and other miserable plagues. 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 9 

EARTHQUAKES. 

These terror-breeding affairs are 
frequent and destructive in some 
parts of the Philippines. Manila, 
the capital, was almost destroyed 
by a shock in 1863, while another 
terrific earthquake visited Mindanoa 
in 1864, destroying most of the 
houses. For this reason the houses 
of Manila are almost all wooden 
structures erected with the view of 
withstanding whatever shocks may 
come in the way of earthquakes. 

THE RAINY SEASON. 

In many of the islands, and 
especially in Mindanoa, there are 
numerous lakes which expand dur- 
ing the rainy season into inland 
seas. The heavy rains commence 
in May and gradually cease about 



10 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

December, the land being more or 
less flooded from June to Novem- 
ber. In consequence of the heavy 
and frequent rains, there is scarcely 
any limit to the growth of vegeta- 
tion, and it seems the decaying 
products of such wonderfully rich 
soil would develop malarial and pes- 
tilential conditions and cause the 
most malignant epidemics of fever, 
especially yellow fever and typhoid. 
But it appears that nature is exceed- 
ingly benign and considerate in 
dealing with many of the trouble- 
some problems connected with life, 
health, and happiness, and in this 
case she interposes counteracting 
influences so as to modify the viru- 
lence of the malarial poison upon 
the many islands, and limit the 
ravages of disease. 

The islands are surrounded by 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 11 

the great ocean, from whose surface 
millions of tons of water ascend 
heavenward every hour during the 
hot season, and " as what goes up 
must come dow^n," rains are fre- 
quent and copious, causing un- 
limited vegetable growth, and as all 
such growths must perish and give 
to earth and air the products of 
their decomposition, the tendency 
is to poison the atmosphere so as 
to make all the islands uninhabi- 
table ; but the same ocean that con- 
tributes to the formation of malaria, 
in an indirect way, permits the 
infected breezes that sweep over 
the various islands to bathe, cleanse, 
and purify their wings in its briny 
bosom. Islands, notwithstanding 
their natural tendencies to malarial 
development, are much less liable 
to malignant epidemics than conti- 



12 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

nents, and the smaller the islands 
the more healthful they are, as the 
opportunities for laving and purify- 
ing their zephyrs in the ocean are 
multiplied, 

VOLCANOES, 

Many active volcanoes are scat- 
tered through the islands. Mayon, 
in the great Luzon Island, and 
Buhayan, in Mindanoa, have caused 
great devastation; and yet volca- 
noes are the great evolutionary 
forces that have operated for hun- 
dreds of centuries in raising the 
Philippine and Sooloo Islands out 
of the Pacific Ocean ; they are the 
eruptive energies that have lifted 
from the deep, seething caldrons of 
earth the fiery lava and spread it 
out in vast beds upon the many 
islands, to be dissolved by the 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 13 

descending torrents of ages, and 
transformed into the richest soil 
known to man, 

ORIGIN OF THE PHILIP- 
PINES. 

Begarding the origin of these 
islands, there are conflicting opin- 
ions. Some authorities claim that 
the whole chain of the Philippines 
and Sooloos are simply fragments 
of a submerged continent. Others 
strongly favor the theory that they 
have all been raised from the depths 
of the ocean by volcanic eruptions ; 
and a multiplicity of facts and ob- 
servations in reference to the past 
and present conditions of the many 
islands seem to establish the truth 
of the volcanic theory. 

We know that the planet upon 
which we live was once a seething 



14 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

mass of fire, and that it attained its 
present globular form when it was 
in a melted and liquid state. We 
know this because we find with our 
telescope millions of other heavenly 
bodies that are now glowing globes 
of liquid fire, while others are cold 
and dark like our earth, and give 
no light except the reflected rays of 
a sun. This teaches us the origin, 
life, death, and decay of worlds, 
and w r e know that every star, every 
glowing sun, that scintillates to- 
night in the infinite azure, will 
sometime be an immense cinder 
— a burned-out and blackened char. 
We also know that some of the 
Philippine Islands are melting, as 
it were, with fervent heat ; are con- 
stantly encroaching upon the ocean 
by volcanic upheavals and deposits ; 
building mountain chains and form- 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 15 

ing broad, luxuriant beds of lava in 
the lower lands and valleys. Others 
have just completed the fiery pro- 
cess, are full grown, and their vol- 
canoes have permanently ceased 
their eruptions. 

In other islands the volcanoes 
have been extinct, possibly, for 
thousands of years. Their once 
violent and fiery peaks have become 
cold and quiet; torrents of rain 
have rounded them down, filled up 
and obliterated their craters, carried 
their fertilizing lava to lower levels, 
and all volcanic signs have disap- 
peared. We know that all the glit- 
tering suns now thrilling their peo- 
pled systems with life and energy 
must in time become cold and dark. 
We know that hot and life-sustain- 
ing as millions of suns now are, all 
the dark planets of the universe 



16 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

once were. We know that every 
seething, devastating, terror-breed- 
ing volcano in the Philippines 
must sometime become cool and 
quiet. 

We almost know that every 
green-clad island of the group that 
now teems with millions of life- 
forms and peacefully enjoys an 
immunity from periodic explosions 
was once a fire-spitting, life-destroy- 
ing volcano. 

THE SOIL. 

The land of China is said to be 
the most productive and enduring 
upon the globe, and the fertility of 
the soil depends upon immense lava- 
beds that are a thousand feet thick 
in places. The soil is called loess, 
the accent being upon the first syl- 
lable, is of a dark, reddish-brown, 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 17 

consisting of disintegrated lava 
mixed with decayed vegetation. 

The soil of the Philippines is 
almost identical in its origin, char- 
acter, general fertility, and endur- 
ing properties with that of China, 
as the torrents of rain dissolve the 
lava crusts from the volcanic ranges, 
carrying them to the lower lands 
and valleys to be mixed with de- 
cayed vegetable matter. 

The soil, like the loess of China, 
is of a reddish-brown, and is unsur- 
passed in its productive capacity. 

HOW ITS FERTILITY IS 
MAINTAINED. 

Primarily, soil, in all the count- 
less worlds, is absolutely mineral, 
as it can never be mixed with ani- 
mal or vegetable matter until life, 
growth, death, and decay are estab- 



18 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

lished. Therefore the basis of all 
soil is and always has been mineral. 

The birds that deposit millions of 
tons of guano upon the islands of 
South America, simply return to 
mother earth the mineral elements 
they obtain in the form of animal 
or vegetable food. 

It may seem unreasonable to sup- 
pose that land can be enriched by 
allowing crops of vegetation to de- 
compose upon its surface and give 
back to the soil only those identical 
elements they had extracted from 
it, and yet this is one of the best 
ways to fertilize some kinds of 
soil. 

The mineral properties of every 
soil have an intrinsic tendency to 
sink deeper and deeper into the 
earth, until they reach an imper- 
vious and impassable foundation of 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 19 

clay or stone upon which the soil 
rests. 

In the Philippines, where the soil 
is wonderfully rich in mineral ingre- 
dients, where rains are frequent 
and copious, where frost and snows 
are unknown and the season of 
growth is perpetual, the plants and 
grasses extract the mineral elements 
from the deep soil and deposit them 
upon the surface in the form of veg- 
etable mould. In addition to this, 
various mineral deposits are leached 
from the volcanic ranges every year 
by floods of rain and washed to 
lower levels, keeping the lands con- 
stantly enriched. 

CLIMATE. 

From the first of November to 
the first of May the Philippines are 
almost a paradise so far as temper- 



20 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

ature is concerned, but by May first 
the heat begins to be oppressive, 
the air becomes intensely humid, 
and the rainy season commences. 
Almost every one is familiar with 
the fact that evaporation consumes 
heat. If water is spread out upon 
any body, it not only cools the sur- 
face of that body, but rapidly cools 
the air in contact with it. But for 
the rainy season, which lasts five or 
six months, the temperature of the 
Philippines would be unendurable 
from May until December, but the 
rains are widespread, floods of water 
are poured down upon the sur- 
face, and the air is comparatively 
cool until it commences to get dry, 
when, usually, another flood of rain 
falls, and in this way the heat of a 
Philippine summer, which would 
otherwise be extreme, is avoided. 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 21 

TIMBER. 

" Immense forests spread over 
the Philippine Islands, clothing the 
mountains to their summits ; ebony, 
iron-wood, cedar, span-wood, gum- 
trees, etc., being laced together and 
garlanded by bush-rope or palasan, 
which attains a length of several 
hundred feet. The variety of fruit- 
trees is great, including the orange, 
citron, oread-fruit, mango, cocoa- 
nut, guave, tamarind, rose-apple, 
etc. ; other important products of 
the vegetable kingdom being the 
banana, plantain, pine-apple, sugar- 
cane, tobacco, cotton, indigo, coffee, 
cocoa, cinnamon, vanilla, ginger, 
pepper, etc., with rice, wheat, corn, 
and various other cereals." (Cham- 
bers' Encyclopaedia.) 



22 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

GOLD IN THE ISLANDS. 

Gold is found in the river-beds, 
and in the detritus or sediments of 
various mountain streams, the gold 
dust thus obtained being used as a 
medium of exchange on some of 
the islands, especially in the large 
southern island, Mindanoa. Ac- 
cording to the best information ob- 
tainable, no decided effort has ever 
been made to find and develop gold 
mines. 

It is probable that all the gold 
that has ever been found upon the 
earth has been brought to the sur- 
face by volcanic eruptions, although 
it is often found in the banks and 
beds of streams hundreds of miles 
from mountain ranges. 

There are several interesting 
points in connection with gold de- 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 23 

posits, and those of other heavy and 
precious metals, that may be con- 
sidered to advantage here. We 
know that gold is a very heavy 
metal, that its specific gravity 
is 19 or a trifle more, or, in other 
words, it is 19 times as heavy as an 
equal bulk of water. We also know 
that platinum and iridium are 22 
times as heavy as water, and that 
all of these wonderfully heavy 
metals are scarce upon the earth's 
surface, and are found only in 
mountain ranges, all of which 
were primarily volcanoes, or in 
the detrital deposits of mountain 
streams. 

Why is this so? The answer 
seems easy. The globe was once 
in a melted condition, and, naturally 
enough, the intensely heavy metals 
sank deeply into the liquid earth. 



24 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

After the lapse of ages the earth 
became sufficiently cool to form a 
crust upon its surface that was 
impervious to steam. Terrific vol- 
canoes were numerous, breaking 
through the crust and building 
mountain ranges by upheavals and 
deposits of melted matter. It was 
during these eruptions that some of 
the heavy and very precious metals 
were thrown out and strewn over 
the sides of mountains. It was 
during these natural explosions that 
lava, containing gold, filled many 
of the volcanic craters and formed 
what we now call " veins of gold- 
bearing ore." As the Philippines 
are all volcanic formations, all raised 
from the bed of the ocean by erup- 
tions and deposits, there is every 
reason to believe that gold exists in 
most of the islands, and that enter- 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 25 

prising Americans may find a new 
Eldorado, a new Klondike, in that 
archipelago; and what a heavenly 
place it will be for mining as com- 
pared with Alaska ! 

The historical facts and condi- 
tions favoring the belief that the 
Philippines are among the very 
richest gold regions upon the earth 
are the following : 

First, These islands are unques- 
tionably volcanic formations, and as 
all gold has been brought to the 
earth's surface by volcanic erup- 
tions, it is reasonable to suppose 
that vast quantities have been de- 
posited in the many mountains of 
the Philippines in this way. 

Second, It is widely claimed that 
the sand and gravel of all the 
streams of the many islands pan 
out gold. 



26 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

Third, The gold industry, crude 
as it always has been, is as old as 
the history of the islands, and the 
shining* metal was exported to China 
before the discovery of the archipel- 
ago by Magellan nearly four hun- 
dred years ago. 

Fourth, The natives, uneducated 
and uncivilized as they are, have 
obtained gold for centuries from 
the creek and river sands, and have 
been using it among themselves 
constantly as a medium of exchange. 

Fifth, The people upon the 
islands are not sufficiently intel- 
ligent and enterprising to find and 
develop gold mines, and therefore 
have obtained only such gold as 
they could find and save in an easy 
and simple way. 

Sixth, The show of gold in the 
sedimentary deposits of every val- 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 27 

ley, and in the detritus of every 
river, creek, and brook, leads one 
to regard the whole Philippine 
archipelago as an immense cluster 
of gold mines. 

STAPLE PRODUCTS OF 
THE SOIL. 

There are no richer lands in the 
world than those of the Philippine 
Islands, and therefore it is not 
strange that such soil-exhausting 
staples as hemp, tobacco, cotton, 
coffee, sugar, rice, wheat, and corn 
are raised in abundance upon the 
principal islands. 

On the broad tablelands, long 
slopes, and rich valleys, immense 
quantities of hemp are produced 
every year, the annual amount ex- 
ported being about a hundred and 
thirty million pounds. 



28 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

In 1890 sixteen million pounds 
of tobacco and one hundred and 
ten million cigars were exported 
from the islands. 

Great quantities of cotton, sugar, 
coffee, rice, wheat, and corn are 
produced annually, their production 
affording profitable employment to 
hundreds of thousands, and adding 
in that way to the general pros- 
perity of the many islands. 

MINERALS. 

The archipelago is rich in vari- 
ous minerals, such as iron, copper, 
coal, vermilion, quicksilver, sulphur, 
nitre, etc. Beds of bituminous coal 
suitable for smelting and all manu- 
facturing purposes have been found 
upon several of the islands, and the 
amount of the " black diamond ' 
easily obtained will afford ample 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 29 

facilities in the way of fuel for re- 
ducing and utilizing the many me- 
tallic ores with which the Philip- 
pines abound. 

WILD BEASTS. 

If wild, ferocious animals ever 
existed upon these islands, they 
have been exterminated by the in- 
habitants, as none are found upon 
any of them now. 

The domestic animals are about 
the same as those of our own 
country, excepting the peculiar 
breeds of horses, hogs, and cattle. 

SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES. 

Since the discovery of the Philip- 
pine archipelago by Magellan 377 
years ago the lamp of reason has 
been burning upon the various 
islands with a lurid and flickering 



30 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

light, and it is to be deplored that 
most of the people are mentally as 
obtuse, stupid, and superstitious as 
were the followers of Moses in the 
woods of Sinai thousands of years 
ago. Even in and about the cities 
and trading centres of the many 
habitable islands, the few schools 
that are kept up are very poorly 
attended. In Manila there are 
many schools for both sexes, but 
the attendance is very poor. The 
sexes are divided in the schools, 
one school being for males and 
another for females, and this af- 
fords further evidence of the back- 
ward condition of the people in 
matters of education. There are, 
however, some good schools, as the 
Saint Thomas and the Municipal 
Atheneum of San Juan de Latran 
are very important and well at- 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 31 

tended. There are also universi- 
ties where the usual branches of 
science are taught. 

WAGON ROADS AND RAIL- 
ROADS. 

Common roads have been estab- 
lished, so that the one thousand and 
fifty-five different villages, or pue- 
blos, can have easy communication 
with each other, but there is only 
one railroad in the Philippines, and 
that extends from Manila to Daga- 
pan, a distance of 196 kilometres, 
or about 122 miles. 

There are many steamship com- 
panies that carry passengers and 
freight to every port of the islands, 
and also to America, China, and 
Japan. 



32 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

CAUSES OF THE INSUR- 
RECTION. 

In dealing with disease, one of 
the most important things to con- 
sider is the cause of the derange- 
ment, and there are usually two 
causes — predisposing and exciting. 
For example : A hereditary tendency 
to rheumatism is a predisposing 
cause of the disease, while an ex- 
posure to wet and cold is an excit- 
ing cause. In the war of the 
Rebellion, slavery was the predis- 
posing cause, while the election of 
Lincoln was the exciting cause. 

The opposition of Freemasonry 
to the prevailing religion of Brazil 
was the predisposing cause of the 
revolution in 1889, while the agita- 
tion and discussion of other ques- 
tions became the exciting cause of 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 33 

the war that resulted in the over- 
throw of the empire. 

In the war of the Philippines 
there was undoubtedly a feeling 
of hatred toward the Spanish gov- 
ernment that rankled in the bosoms 
of many, and was to some extent a 
predisposing cause of the insurrec- 
tion, but the most active, wide- 
spread, and exciting cause was 
a factional strife between Free- 
masonry and Catholicism, and it is 
probable that General Aguinaldo 
and other insurgent leaders " have 
travelled" and in one sense at least 
do business " on the square," their 
chief desire being to bring Spain 
from a living perpendicular to a 
dead level. 



34 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

WHY GOLD MINES AND 
OTHER RESOURCES HAVE 
NEVER BEEN DEVELOPED. 

For nearly four centuries the 
people of the Philippines have 
been degraded, insulted, robbed, 
and wronged ; their ambition and 
hopes have been crushed ; their ed- 
ucation, civilization, and progress 
have been retarded; the Spanish 
government has been a vampire at 
their vitals, sucking the blood of 
honest toil ; each wind sweeping 
over the archipelago has caught up 
the sighs of broken and bleeding 
hearts ; the sands of every island 
have been steeped in tears wrung 
out by Spanish cruelty and greed ; 
the richest and most productive 
lands upon which the sun has ever 
shone have been stirred by wooden 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 35 

plows drawn by time-wasting oxen; 
crops have been cultivated with 
sticks and human fingers instead of 
suitable hoes ; sugar-cane has been 
beaten with sticks and stones in- 
stead of being crushed by a mill; 
gold has been panned from the sand 
and gravel of almost every river, 
creek, and murmuring brook that 
reaches the Pacific Ocean from the 
Philippines, and yet those people, 
like a pig feasting upon acorns 
under the branches of a spreading 
oak, have never raised their poor, 
stupid eyes to see where the gold 
comes from. Every tiny bee replete 
with the sweets of flowers points, 
by its course through the trackless 
woods, to its forest home; every 
grain of gold glittering in the sands 
of a Philippine stream points up- 
ward along the winding course of 



36 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

that stream to its primitive home 
in or about some volcanic peak, and 
tells, as it were, that it was once 
thrown from the fiery depths of the 
globe by volcanic explosions ; that 
it was mixed with millions of tons, 
of melted matter that finally cooled 
and hardened into stone ; that it is 
merely a .shining fragment of some 
rich, golc-bearing stratum of rock 
from the face of which it has been 
ground by the erosions of a moun- 
tain stream. 

The bee is unerring in directing 
the sportsman to its natural hive in 
the trunk or limb of a tree : the 
sparkling grains of gold strewn 
along the banks and beds of streams 
are unerring in directing the in- 
telligent explorer to the mine from 
which they came. 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 37 

DO WE WANT THE PHILIP- 
PINES ? 

Yes, we want the whole archipel- 
ago; want the 1,400 islands whose 
wave-washed sands sparkle with 
gold; we want for ourselves and 
generations unborn what seem to 
be the richest gold-fields of the 
globe ; we want to extend and en- 
large our dominions, amplify our 
commerce, and carry the burning 
torch of reason and civilization 
into the darkest parts of the 
planet. 

Evolution, life, and growth are 
the ruling principles of every nation 
until decadence and death begin. 
We want a country so great in ex- 
tent, so vast and varied in its re- 
sources, and so world-reaching in 
its commerce that local failures 



38 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

in crops can never affect us in a 
serious way. 

THE NEW COMMERCIAL 

ERA. 

" This country is on the eve of 
an enormous extension of its foreign 
commerce. 

" Not only does a great trade 
await us in Cuba and Porto Kico, — 
to secure which ships are already 
sailing from all our Atlantic and 
Gulf ports, — but ten new lines of 
steamers have been organized to 
trade with the Orient, and now an 
eleventh is announced from San 
Diego, Cal. 

" These lines will sail some of 
them from the eastern and some 
of them from the western coasts. 
They will trade with Hawaii, China, 
Japan, South Africa, New Zealand, 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 39 

Australia, Manila, the East Indies, 
and the Polynesian groups. 

" Manila, in our hands, promises 
to become a rival of Hongkong in 
world-coyering commerce. 

" What and how much all this 
means for the American people it 
is not easy to estimate. The 
peoples with whom we are thus 
establishing relations want our 
grain, our hogs, our beef, our mut- 
ton, our agricultural machinery and 
implements, our coal oil, our sew- 
ing-machines, type-writers, bicycles, 
cutlery, crockery, glassware, toys, 
dolls, calicoes, silks, blankets, and, 
in brief, everything that the Ameri- 
can people produce. 

" This trade will enrich our mer- 
chants and ship-owners. It will set 
all our wheels a-spinning. It will 
give employment to all our people. 



40 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

" The period of American home- 
market seclusion is past. The era 
of world traffic is beginning." — 
New York World. 

LET US KEEP ALL THE 
ISLANDS WE CAN GET, 
INCLUDING THE PHILIP- 
PINES, 

We have the greatest and best 
country on earth. Our vast do- 
main, with its rich limestone soil, 
its unlimited natural resources, tem- 
perate and diversified climate, is 
capable of producing the highest 
order of beings, mentally and phys- 
ically, that inhabit the planet. In 
consequence of our highly favorable 
location geographically, and of our 
immense size, being as large as all 
Europe, we can produce enough 
brawn and brain and blood and 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 41 

bone to people not only an empire, 
but a world; and why not establish 
and perpetuate a high type of civ- 
ilization upon all the islands of the 
earth to which we can extend our 
fostering and sheltering care ? 

Thirty centuries ago it was truly 
said : " Israel, thou hast slain thy- 
self." The same may be said of 
Spain, and about all of her foreign 
possessions have dropped into the 
lap of Uncle Sam like so much ripe 
fruit. Why should we give them 
up ? It may be a hundred centuries 
before another country, with more 
territorial possessions than discre- 
tion, blows up one of our warships 
and affords us an opportunity to 
annex such a lovely group of islands 
by conquest. Islands or no islands, 
we need a large navy, — many times 
larger than we have at present, — 



42 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

as the best way to avoid war is to 
get thoroughly ready to fight. Colt 
was a benefactor because his death- 
dealing revolver did what the 
courts, schools, and churches could 
never do — broke up fighting among 
men. 

Through the ceaseless forces of 
evolution we have transcended the 
wildest dreams of James Munroe, 
have thoroughly outgrown his fa- 
mous doctrine, and are now fully 
launched upon the broad ocean of 
imperialism, looking for islands. 
We have found some rich and 
choice ones that are equal in their 
aggregate area to England, Ireland, 
and Scotland, and have wrested 
them from Spain by an honorable 
and righteous war of conquest, and 
should hold them, as a gentleman 
suggests, until the sun grows cold. 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 43 

It would require a book instead 
of the space of a dozen lines in 
which to enumerate the probable 
advantages of the Philippines to 
the United States. Those islands 
are larger in area than the State 
of New York and all New England ; 
have nearly as many people ; are far 
richer and greater in agricultural 
resources, and lie practically upon 
the threshold of China and Japan. 

When they are annexed and 
Americanized their further devel- 
opment and civilization will be 
very rapid ; they will be settled 
by enterprising Americans and Eu- 
ropeans ; will be dominated by 
Anglo-Saxon blood; their popula- 
tion will probably double in a 
decade of years, and they will be- 
come a great American emporium 
through which to lay the products 



44 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

of our shops, looms, and soil in the 
laps of China and Japan. What 
are the islands worth to us? I 
don't know. They are priceless. 

What would it be worth to estab- 
lish a greater and better trade with 
Asia than we have ever enjoyed 
with Europe, thrill the whole Pa- 
cific coast with new life, and make 
another New York of San Fran- 
cisco? Contrary to the views of 
the anti-expansionists, it is the 
great distance of those islands and 
their location in Asiatic waters 
that render them of infinite value 
to us. We have but little need for 
stepping-stones through which to 
reach the markets of Europe, and 
therefore the Philippines would 
doubtless be of greater commercial 
importance to us than the whole 
of Spain. 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 45 

A few timid souls fear those 
islands will throw grave responsi- 
bilities upon the United States and 
subject us to the dangers of foreign 
wars. There is nothing in this 
world worth having that does not 
involve responsibility. The sun 
that rises to-morrow morning will 
be greeted by a new thousand 
miles of landscape every hour until 
it reaches the Pacific Ocean, and 
will not shine once upon a nation 
of cowards. The same kind of 
bravery, the same kind of armies 
and navies, that won this rich ar- 
chipelago from Spain can hold and 
defend it forever. 



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